Two Australian heavy hitters, She Beast and Wounded Pig, go head-to-head on this new, delightfully noisy split release. She Beast occupies the A-side of the split with two seismic sludge pieces, both over six-minutes in length. Wounded Pig takes up the B-side of the release with seven tracks of drum machine-led, dissonance and groove-laden modern grindcore. Both bands, while performing distinctly different styles, work together to deliver a devastating release. She Beast opens the split with “Castration Hepatitis”, a lurching beast of a tune that relies upon repetitive, yet hypnotically crushing riffs, piercing feedback and tortured vocals. She Beast‘s other track, “Bajingan”, cycles back-and-forth between slow, lumbering doom and city-leveling mid-paced sludge assaults. Wounded Pig then takes over from here with seven bursts of vitriolic grind. These high octane, dismembering assaults, which begin with the trashing “All Else Failed”, are chock full of drop-tuned, skull-caving guitars, dueling vocals and hammering cyber drumming. Tracks like “Parasitoid” dishes out dissonant, angular chaos and churning, chugging madness equally, while cuts like “Living to Death” rely on double bass and disemboweling, slam death metal-tinged guitars. Other cuts like “Lock the Gate” and “On Tap” are straight to the point grind tracks that aim right for the listeners’ throats. Overall this release is a solid one and is perfect for those looking to get aurally maimed.

Former members of As the Sun Sets, Hospital Bomber and countless others come together to deliver some genuinely pissed off sludgy hardcore with Scalp the Pioneer. The outfit’s debut, three-track demo is a scathing blend of drop-tuned, modern powerviolence and the sludge-ridden, chuggy hardcore and metal that first reared its head in the 90s. The result is a short, but wonderfully unsweet release perfect for hardcore lovers looking for a good beating. The band’s eponymous track opens up the demo with 30 seconds of hyper-speed hardcore comprised of pulverizing drumming, battering riffs and erratic vocals. Once this brief stampede of powerviolence subsides, the remainder of the track becomes a lengthy march of dissonant, palm-muted breakdowns that leave no prisoners. “Ringworm” employs the opposite approach by opening up with galloping beatdowns before flowing into muscular, mosh-worthy hardcore. But soon the band’s sludgy, breakdown tendencies take over and the track ends in a climax of chugging doom and gloom. “Fuck Yankee Doodle and the Horse He Rode in on” closes out the release with some groove-heavy, barreling riffs and vicious metallic hardcore stylings that bring bands like Disembodied to mind. It may just be the band’s first demo, but it points to more promising material in the future. Sure, this style of hardcore has been done before, but it seldom sounds this authentically angry. Those looking for an excuse to be mad and break things, look no further.

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